“I came down here last week and found the pattern of throwing a jerkbait,” said Tucker. “It was working really well. And then it snowed about 15 inches and rained another 4 inches. That really changed a lot of stuff. I had to start fresh and scramble. The good thing was that I knew it would make it an even playing field for the competitors. I knew that the locals had been catching them good all winter, but the changing weather conditions played a key factor in helping me compete with them.

“I knew the fish would be sitting just outside of the spawning areas,” Tucker continued. “It’s a pre-spawn deal right now. Some days I caught them in 6 to 8 feet of water, and other days I had to move out to as deep as 17 feet of water. I had to be willing to adapt and move. I couldn’t go back and catch them how I caught them the day before. I had to go out and start fresh in the morning. Luckily every day I was able to get one fish to clue me in on what I should be doing.

“I have a good friend that drove out here from California and he brought a few of the baits with him that I was able to win with,” Tucker went on to say. “The two main baits were a Smithwick Rogue and a River2Sea Ripper jerkbait. I was throwing those on a 6-foot, 6-inch Carrot Stix medium-light rod. I was also throwing a Picasso School-E-Rig with Zoom Swimmin Flukes. The key was being next to deep water. I like fishing a jig, but I just couldn’t get bit on it this week. I had to change up a little bit. I stuck with this the whole day, and the big fish were biting.”

Eakin caught the biggest bass of the tournament in the co-angler division Thursday – a 6-pound, 7-ounce bass – that earned him the day’s EverStart Series Big Bass award of $162.

The EverStart Series consists of five divisions – Central, Northern, Southeast, Texas and Western. Each division consists of four tournaments and competitors will be vying for valuable points in each division that could earn them the Strike King Angler of the Year title, which allows them to fish the 2014 Forrest Wood Cup.

The next EverStart Series Central Division tournament will be May 2-4 at Pickwick Lake in Florence, Ala., and is hosted by the Florence/Lauderdale Tourism Board.

For complete details and updated information visit FLWOutdoors.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow FLW on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWOutdoors.

ABOUT FLW FLW is the industry’s premier tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money nationwide in 2013 over the course of 220 tournaments across five tournament circuits, four of which provide an avenue to the sport’s richest payday and most coveted championship trophy – the Forrest Wood Cup. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show and is broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world. FLW is committed to providing a lifestyle experience that is the “Best in Fishing, On and Off the Water.” For more information about FLW visit FLWOutdoors.com and look for FLW on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube. FLWOutdoors.com